History Main / ArtificialGravity

* Creator/HarryHarrison's ''The Daleth Effect'': The discovery of a way to reduce gravity drives the plot. The scientist who discovered the phenomenon specifically mentions that the knowledge could be used to do horrible things, such as grabbing chunks of the Moon and [[ColonyDrop dropping them on an enemy country]]. The use of the device, for example, allows a craft (which doesn't even need proper engines) to travel to the Moon within hours and to Mars within days (presumably, when Mars is near). A trip to Alpha Centauri would still take over 5 years, but this is ''much'' better than the centuries we're looking at with our current technology. [[spoiler:It turns out that the trick is actually pretty easy to figure out by scientists, once they know what to look for, and, by the end of the novel, several countries have independently filed patents for the technology]].

A NecessaryWeasel trope.

* ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'' depicted zero gravity the hard way: by building spacecraft sets in the NASA zero gravity training aircraft (the Vomit Comet) and filming in it for a month. Far from all of the scenes inside the spacecraft were done this way; a lot of it was done with harnesses and bellyboards and careful framing.
* ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' has a bizarre relationship with this trope, even by scifi standards. Perhaps the most egregious example: The film specifically addresses the fact that the asteroid would have little or no gravity and gives the characters special suits and equipment with "thrusters" so they don't float away while out on the surface of the asteroid. Yet when the characters are inside their space shuttle, which is ''parked right on the asteroid'', they walk around unsuited as though under normal Earth gravity.

* In the ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' universe, you'd expect there to be artificial gravity. It gets special mention because there's a few fight scenes in zero gravity that are [[Awesome/RedVsBlue amazing]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2099 SCP-2099 ("Brain in a Jar")]]. One of SCP-2099's inventions is a generator that doubles the force of gravity on all nearby objects. It was originally an AntiGravity generator, but he changed it by crossing out the word "Anti" that was written on it.

* ''Literature/{{Succession}}:'' There are four types of gravity:

** ''{{Literature/Coyote}}'': This novel tries and fails to avert this trope, when [[CriticalResearchFailure a ship traveling at a constant velocity]] of .2 C results in an effectively 1 g environment.

In SpaceOpera, artificial gravity is the ''last'' thing that breaks when a ship is damaged. You might have lost shields, weapons, drive systems, and half the hull, but things will still fall when dropped. It also makes sense energetically, as there is no (1st Law) reason for an artificial gravity system to consume a significant amount of energy. Artificial gravity is also essential for long-term flights, for if you spend too long in Zero G, then your muscles will become a painful, squishy mush once you get back to regular gravity.

In SpaceOpera, artificial gravity is the ''last'' thing that breaks when a ship is damaged. You might have lost shields, weapons, drive systems, and half the hull, but things will still fall when dropped. This makes a certain degree of sense, as fixing a ship while floating around helplessly would probably take much longer. It also makes sense energetically, as there is no (1st Law) reason for an artificial gravity system to consume a significant amount of energy. Artificial gravity is also essential for long-term flights, for if you spend too long in Zero G, then your muscles will become a painful, squishy mush once you get back to regular gravity.

* The titular museum from ''Anime/DoraemonNobitasSecretGadgetMuseum'' have a Zero-Gravity Exhibition Hall, where objects on display are lined up on walls and the ceiling. Where visitors can literally walk on them.

* E.E. "Doc" Smith flipped back and forth between hard and very soft sci-fi at times. In ''The Skylark of Space'', humanity's first stumbling efforts into the void are played very hard in the gravitational sense. Later, the characters meet alien beings from whom they copy, acquire or (justifiably at times) appropriate gravity-manipulation technology. The ''Lensman'' universe has portable gravity dampers for human personnel assigned to ships of races which are either heavy-gee to start with or have a higher tolerance of it in combat manoeuvres.
** In the ''Family d'Alembert'' series, the heavyworlders who form the top ranks of the galaxy's secret service invariably end up paired with each other because they're the only ones who can stand each other's native environments - and even then, one of them finds that the extra half-gee of the place he's visiting (three vs. 2.5) makes a lot of difference when you're fighting for your life. In fact, the human heavyworlders' planets seem to top out at three gees in both the Lensman and Family d'Alembert series, which suggests Smith did some research which indicated that this was the practical maximum that humans could be expected to successfully adapt to without assistive technology. Such technology is not easily man-portable in the ''Family d'Alembert'' universe, although it is fitted to some of the larger spacecraft, and artificial gravity boosting up to twenty-five gees can be selectively turned on in individual rooms of a dwelling or compartments of a ship. This becomes a major plot point in the climax of both the first and final novels of the series.

* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', [[BadassAdorable Rocket Raccoon]] orchestrates a prison break by turning off the artificial gravity everywhere but in the guard tower, then flying said guard tower through the rest of the base.

* ''Film/{{Outland}}'' takes place on Io, a moon of Jupiter that has only 18% of Earth's gravity. It's not explained how people can walk about normally until halfway through the movie, when we see a line of cells marked ARTIFICIAL GRAVITY OFF (the prisoners are kept floating in mid-air so they can't escape).

* ''Film/ProjectMoonbase'' (1953) had people walking along the corridors of a space station ''[[GravityScrew upside down]]'' past people going the other way due to its variable gravity. They avoided floating off the floor because they were wearing "magnetic shoes". Signs request that you PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON THE WALLS.

* ''Series/TheMandalorian'' has his ship loose all power for a few moments at the beginning of an episode. The gravity generators keep working until he can restart the engines.

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' are somewhat implied to have such a device with this principle; what with being heavily armed, 30 foot tall robots. [[UpToEleven Many of which can even fly]].

** The Brakiri and the Minbari have developed gravitic weapons that effectively crush the target under its own weight. The Brakiri have developed it to be their main weapon even on warships, while the Minbari seem to find it AwesomeButImpractical and only have rings that work as hold-out weapons for diplomats, using more conventional energy weapons for everything else.

[[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness Hard Sci-fi]] tends to avoid the idea that artificial gravity can be generated out of nothing. Typically, the only artificial "gravity" you encounter in Hard Sci-fi is either the result of [[CentrifugalGravity spinning the ship or habitat]], or the entire ship accelerating at one G. Either that, or everyone just floats around inside their spaceships.

* In ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'', the artificial gravity in the Klingon ship is damaged immediately by torpedoes. Although this is probably more to do with [[RuleOfCool the rule of cool]] of having a zero-G gunfight than any attempt at [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard SF]], it is notable, because rare in Star Trek was Zero-gravity ever used. No matter how well beaten a ship was the gravity always worked through thick and thin. Life support out? Power completely lost? Gravity's still on.

[[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness Hard Sci-fi]] tends to avoid the idea that artificial gravity can be generated out of nothing. Typically, the only artificial "gravity" you encounter in Hard Sci-fi is either the result of [[CentrifugalGravity spinning the ship or habitat]], or the entire ship accelerating at one G. Either that, or everyone just floats around inside their spaceships.

* In ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'', the artificial gravity in the Klingon ship is damaged immediately by torpedoes. Although this is probably more to do with [[RuleOfCool the rule of cool]] of having a zero-G gunfight than any attempt at [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard SF]], it is notable, because rare in Star Trek was Zero-gravity ever used. No matter how well beaten a ship was the gravity always worked through thick and thin. Life support out? Power completely lost? Gravity's still on.

* In ''Series/StarTrekLowerDecks'', it's played depressingly straight, to the point that a starship with ''literally no other functioning electronics'' still has gravity.

** The Brakiri and the Minbari have developed gravitic weapons that effectively crush the target under its own weight. The Brakiri have developed it to be their main weapon even on warships, while the Minbari seem to find it AwesomeButImpractical and only have rings that work as hold-out weapons for diplomats.

** As artificial gravity generation is a closely held secret, humans have to make do with ships that have rotating hull segments to generate centrifugal force, whereas smaller vessels had to do completely without any gravity other than when accelerating. Humans eventually get a hold on this technology thanks to [[spoiler:joining the Alliance, as one of its advantages is sharing technology and science among the member races.]]

** The Covenant make much more extensive use of gravity technology; all of their vehicles use anti-gravity to move and stay afloat, and they even use it for things as small and mundane as jetpacks, chairs and lifts. They even have small gravity generators attached to their aptly-named Gravity Hammers to strengthen each blow. The [[{{Precursors}} Forerunners]] they reverse-engineered the technology from had even great mastery over it, allowing them to keep entire skyscrapers afloat for 100,000+ years with little to no outside maintenance. Forerunner Monitor [=AIs=] even have limited telekinetic abilities, [[spoiler:while the Ur-Didact's own pseudo-telekinesis is so powerful that he can easily beat the Master Chief without ever touching or shooting him]].